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How Academia Still Struggles With Sexual Harassment (buzzfeed.com)
New submitter Dr. Scatterplot writes: Richard Feynman is celebrated as a brilliant scientist and idiosyncratic character. He is also someone who today might be accused of sexual harassment. That is, if his students felt empowered to report him. Whether his department would have done anything back then is a different matter. How far should academic communities go to protect their intellectual capital, at the expense of further harm to their students, past and present? UC Berkeley and exoplanet astronomers are walking that line with prominent professor and exoplanet discoverer Geoff Marcy. "Four women alleged that Marcy repeatedly engaged in inappropriate physical behavior with students, including unwanted massages, kisses, and groping. As a result of the findings, the women were informed, Marcy has been given 'clear expectations concerning his future interactions with students,' which he must follow or risk 'sanctions that could include suspension or dismissal.''
Two of my friends were trapped with a faculty adviser who was incredibly abusive (verbally) toward one, and regularly sexually harassed the other. On a daily basis, for years. They tolerated his abuse for so long because they felt they had no choice. Getting a different adviser would mean abandoning their work (in theoretical mathematics), setting them back a ton of money (in academic loans) and years of work/research. Reporting the adviser's abuse would result in the same penalties for them.
It was a messed up power dynamic of which their adviser was likely fully aware and certainly took full advantage. Even after obtaining their PhD's, my friends can't do much about it. They still need the adviser's support as a reference, for getting published, and they just want to put it all behind them.
That is the main problem with sexual harassement. Once a sexual harassement case appear, the consequences of being wrong will be terrible in either case:
1/ either you let a sexual harasser free.
2/ or you destroy the life of an innocent.
Neither of these options are preferable. And because it is so hard to get evidence of these, it often ends in "he said/she said". So everyone wants to tiptoe around it.
" There is a strong cultural tradition that says that women are supposed to protest against pursuit, even when that's what they really want, and there's no easy way to tell. "
Wrong. If a woman likes you she will let you know subtly.Do you seriously think a woman is going to protest against the advances of someone they are romantically attracted to? Understanding the nuance between friendliness and flirting is something most geeks fail to understand or realize it even exists.
"Clearly the only safe procedure is to immediately desist upon request, but there's also a strong cultural tradition that says this is "unmanly". Whoops!"
Wrong. You stop. Don't be a creep.